


good company

by palisadespalisades



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, brave but soft loves soft but brave!!, just a .. cute ass one shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 08:46:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12813912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palisadespalisades/pseuds/palisadespalisades
Summary: prompt: like maybe the first time bill realizes he has a crush?It all came back to that kitchen, though. Staring at Mike, with flour on his cheek and a soft smile on his lips, in the easy silence, Bill realized: he’d made Bill’s house feel like a home again.





	good company

**Author's Note:**

> big bill works fast
> 
> (mike doesn't mind)
> 
> sorry it's so short! i just ,, thought i'd throw SOMETHING into this tag

Mike had flour on his cheek.

It looked a little ridiculous, and Bill  _could not_  stop staring. They were in the Denbrough kitchen, it was four o’clock on a Friday, and they were getting ready for movie night with the Losers, like they have every day for the past three years.

Movie Nights had always been at the Denbroughs’ house, because Bill had a nice place with absent enough parents, who wouldn’t care if the kids were screaming and laughing and making a mess in the living room, because they preferred to pretend as though the kids weren’t there at all. Still, it had been a rotating party of who joined Bill when he prepped for it, until their sophomore year of high school. Mike showed up, a tupperware full of cookie dough in his hands and a bashful smile.  _“Can I bake this here? I thought we could do a little more than popcorn for once.”_  And the rest was history.

They’d settled into an easy kind of routine. Every Friday after school, instead of heading to the farm, Mike would bike home with Bill. He would bake in Bill’s kitchen, and help him set up for movie night. And Bill had always looked forward to Movie Night, but he wasn’t sure when it became the highlight of his week. He wasn’t sure when the smell of baking yeast wafting from his kitchen became his favourite smell. He wasn’t sure when Mike had become his closest friend, but it had happened in the kitchen, his head resting in his arms, legs dangling off the stool at the island, Mike on the other side, kneading dough or mixing batter.

Mike may have well been the kindest person Bill had ever met, and Bill would never stop being grateful for his friendship. Even when they’d barely known each other, he’d never gotten impatient with Bill’s stutter. He was the first to reach out, calloused hand brushing Bill’s shoulder, when he was a little too quiet. Everyone knew Bill loved to draw, but Mike was the first to figure out that Bill liked to write, too — that the words fell easier from the tip of a pen than from the tip of his tongue. One day, he’d shown up at the quarry with a 3-pack of scribbler notebooks and handed it to Bill.  _“You should write more.”_ He’d wanted to cry a little bit, after that.

And their friendship had snowballed from those afternoons in Bill’s kitchen. There were these beautiful landscapes on Mike’s farm, and sometimes he would just bike there, sketchbook in his lap while Mike did his chores, music playing in the background. Bill liked softer music ( _sadder_  music) than Mike did to work, but they found an in-between in Queen’s ballad-type songs, Freddie Mercury crooning from Mike’s stereo. He had half a sketchbook devoted to Mike dancing in the barn, shoulders shimmying to Under Pressure, dipping a pitchfork like a dance partner to Purple Rain. They went swimming at the quarry and to movies at the Aladdin, and Mike knew Bill’s order at the diner, and when to wrap his arm around him, when they were sitting, just  _talking_  under Mike’s favourite willow tree, and Bill’s shoulders started shaking with sudden, barely-suppressed sobs.

It all came back to that kitchen, though. Staring at Mike, with flour on his cheek and a soft smile on his lips, in the easy silence, Bill realized: he’d made Bill’s house feel like a home again.

And it all kind of made sense, after that. The warmth in the tips of his ears and in the pit of his stomach when Bill was crammed into a booth at the diner, pressed against Mike, bumping elbows. How, when all the Losers were bickering and laughing and talking over one another, Bill stared at Mike, waiting for him to speak, because that was who he wanted to hear the most. The way, when he needed to talk to someone, his fingers dialled Mike’s number before he even realized it, because Mike always knew exactly what to say.

He had a crush on Mike for three whole years, and he hadn’t even realized it.

Propping himself up, Bill reached across the island, lanky arm hovering just at Mike’s face. “H-hey, you have, uh. Flour.” He thumbed across Mike’s cheek, trying to wipe the flour away, streaking his down his face instead.

He didn’t pull his hand back. “S-sorry.”

Mike’s eyes widened, glancing down to Bill’s hand, but he snorted anyways. He was smiling a warm, familiar, smile. “Thanks.”

Without thinking, Bill pulled himself across the counter, and pressed his lips against Mike’s. Of course he had a crush on him. Of course he loved him. Loving Mike Hanlon was so easy, he’d been fooling himself, thinking it was anything but an inevitability.

To Bill’s delight, Mike kissed back.

**Author's Note:**

> always accepting prompts (esp for this Underappreciated Pair) @homokaspbrak!


End file.
